Re: gettext-0.14.2 is released

[Bruno Haible]

Kevin Ryde wrote:
> >   - For guile, the code and doc regarding FORMAT in SLIB are not relevant
> >     any more?
>
> Oh, well, if it's withdrawn from slib then there's nothing for guile
> to stay compatible with.
>
> >   - The guile FORMAT attempts to be an extension of Common Lisp FORMAT,
> >     i.e. that all CL format directives are supported without changes
> >     (except when documented otherwise, such as ~_)?
>
> Yes, basically, I think.  There's some things missing though, like ~< ~>.
>
> >   - Differences in behaviour between a valid CL format string and the
> >     same string in guile (except when documented otherwise) are bugs in
> >     format.scm that I should report?
>
> Yep.  I think there's some doubtful treatment of digits in some of the
> floating point output, that's the sort of thing that really ought to
> be the same as CL.
>
> >   - The reference to which I can point translators is the node
> >     "Formatted Output" in the guile documentation?
>
> For guile, yes.  What other schemes are doing is another matter.

Thanks for these answers. I have updated gettext's format-scheme.c accordingly.

> srfi-28 and srfi-48 specify versions of format too.  In the latter ~t
> is different, and ~h is an addition.

Hmm, the differences between guile's 'format' and SRFI-48 are going to be a
problem in the long run.

Also a problem is that some programs might be using the simple-format, but
xgettext doesn't know about this (since the function name is still 'format'),
and when the translator puts in translations with ~:* and the like, the
simple-format will not support it. I see no solution for it so far, other
than mentioning in the doc that the simple format is unsuitable for
internationalization.

Bruno